HIGH First character maker in a Sonic game? Sweet!

LOW The level design, story, and gameplay are shockingly underwhelming.

WTF Avatars can wear a hat that says “Gamer”.

Sonic Forces has many interesting gameplay ideas and a dynamic character creation feature in this visually stylish package, but is constantly held back by a lack of creative level design, a lack of polish in its controls, and a story that fails to engage.

Shockingly, Dr. Eggman has defeated and imprisoned Sonic with his new mysteriously masked jackal comrade, Infinite, who bends reality using the Phantom Ruby. Now, with Eggman’s tyranny throwing the world into an apocalyptic state, a resistance team of Sonic’s friends must rescue our hero and save the world, with help from a Classic Sonic from another dimension and a rookie soldier — the Custom Avatar.

While this seems like a more mature premise than Sonic usually offers, the storytelling jarringly flip-flops between upbeat and serious, with tone-killing one-liners making things even worse. This incoherence shows that the story doesn’t know how to make players feel about the characters and story.

Additionally, many potentially interesting and dramatic plot points feel underdeveloped, and Infinite, the new enemy, lacks character development and any interesting use of his powers – are they real or just an illusion? It seems like even the writers don’t know the answer. In terms of play, Sonic Forces combines mechanics from previous entries – Modern Sonic’s fast-paced 3D “boost formula” and Classic Sonic’s 2D side-scrolling with the addition of Sonic Mania’s Drop Dash.

All of these elements are easy to pick up, and it can be entertaining to speed through stages while destroying hordes of enemies. Unfortunately, it all feels too simplistic too soon, making the gameplay loop feel repetitive.

Offering some variety, the Custom Avatar character wields “wispons” — weapons containing the superpowered aliens from Sonic Colors, which have various special attacks and powers. Occasionally, the Custom Avatar even teams up with Sonic in tag team stages.

Creating a character is a cute novelty with hundreds of pieces of clothing to be unlocked and seven species options, each with their own benefits (the bird species has a double jump, and so forth). Each Wispon has its own strengths and weaknesses, as well. A favorite was gaining insane speed from the Drill Wispon after mashing the trigger button.

Unfortunately, no matter what character the player chooses, the controls feel noticeably stiff, the running buildup too quick, and the jump too floaty – it all feels rushed and lacks the momentum and fluidity that made the classic 2D games rewarding to master. The stages, while linear, have some interesting obstacles – things like platforms that zoom forward when landing on them. A few even have alternate pathways, encouraging replayability with different Wispons that can aid in saving time or rewarding players with
hidden Red Star Rings.

But yet, it’s another mixed bag!

Most levels are much too short and don’t space out obstacles well. Excessive automated sequences remove player control and agency, and the potential of 3D gameplay is undercut in favor of basic, blocky 2D sections. Despite having 30 main stages, the the experience feel short-lived and repetitive. A smaller number of longer, more developed stages with fully fleshed-out mechanics would be a vast improvement. Visually, Sonic Forces again lurches one way, and then the other. The graphics and art style blend both cartoony and realistic, and the slick animations are a feast for the eyes while embodying Sonic’s cool, fast, and stylish qualities.

On the other hand, the animation during cutscenes gives characters wooden expressions and static movement, which is off-putting and immediately disengaged me from any potential drama. There’s also been a decent effort made to convey the world’s apocalyptic state through its original levels, with giant Death Egg Robots tearing up the city in Sunset Heights and flames burning around Luminous Forest. I wish the whole adventure was as original as these bits though, instead of otherwise mostly reusing past levels to pander for nostalgia — if Green Hill Zone is absolutely required as a level, it could have at least been altered to fit with the rest of the world in turmoil.

Overall, Sonic Forces’ potential for interesting storytelling, gameplay and level design are undercut by a lack of length, depth, and polish. Younger or casual players may enjoy Forces’ simplicity, but die-hard Sonic fans are better off playing Sonic Generations or Mania instead.

Rating: 4.5 out of 10

— Thomas Greeney

Disclosures: This game is developed by Sonic Team and Hardlight Studios and published
by Sega. It is currently available on PS4, XBO, Switch and PC. This copy was purchased as a
paid download and reviewed on PC. Approximately 4 hours of play were
devoted to the single-player mode and the game was completed. An extra 3 hours were spent
on the side content, from a total of 7 hours of gameplay to review the title. There are no
multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated E10+ and contains Fantasy Violence.
According to the site: Sonic Forces is an adventure platformer in which players help Sonic
and his friend defeat Dr. Eggman and his evil plans. As players speed through different
landscapes, they collect items (e.g., gold rings), avoid hazards, and use spin attacks to defeat
robotic foes and bosses. Players can also use a created character to fire grappling hooks and
other cartoony weapons (e.g., fire blasters, electric whip) to defeat enemies. During some boss encounters, players can perform close-up finishing blows that knock opponents out in dramatic fashion.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf and Hard of Hearing Gamers: Sonic Forces offers subtitles for cutscenes and
gameplay, and there are hints players can read. Text cannot be resized or altered. Other visual
elements will guide players through levels like button prompts and markers to indicate
enemies. This game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: Yes, Sonic Forces offers fully remappable controls.

The post Sonic Forces Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Surfing a missile into a building is rad as hell.

LOW There’s a suboptimal amount of downtime in the stage design.

WTF Joe’s eloquent way with words.

Are videogame bad guys deliberately stupid? It’s a question I’m sure nobody on the planet has ever asked before, but the bad guy in Shinobi: Art of Vengeance, Lord Ruse, comes across as a prime example of being a blithering dum-dum.

First, he’s a bad guy gunning for domination in a world where Sega’s premiere bad guy-killing ninja Joe Musashi exists. He then intentionally attacks Joe’s home while he’s chilling with his wife, dog and students, confidently relegating the killing of said super ninja to his most inept followers and leaving before the job’s done — so now Joe has to prioritize killing the bastard in a personal way.

Players will rely on Joe’s trusty katana during this 2D side scrolling quest, as well as a pocket full of throwing knives and an understated ability to dive-kick dudes in the face. Over time he’ll acquire new moves and additional gear, but don’t expect new weapon types. Blowing fire and summoning snake gods are all well and good, but Joe’s ultimately a katana guy through and through.

In his pursuit of vengeance, Joe will discover amulets that improve or modify certain abilities. He can equip some that cause enemies to drop more money or better healing items, while others offer rechargeable barriers that absorb a single attack or give significant damage buffs as his combo meter rises.

Naturally there are a ton of bad guys to meet and defeat along the way, from low level ninja to far more competent ‘elite’ demons, robots and skilled swordsmen.

Most enemies have two damage gauges to keep track of — their basic health and a stun meter that opens them up for an instant execution marker which will see Joe bullet across the screen turning every vulnerable enemy a into bloody mist. It should be mentioned that doing these instakills never, ever gets old and is heavily encouraged by showering players who use it with more resources than normal kills.

To get specific for a moment, there’s an excessive amount of hitstop on attacks, causing the action to briefly freeze as blade meets flesh. Most titles usually reserve this for heavy or perfectly-timed hits, but Shinobi: Art of Vengeance liberally applies it to pretty much everything. It’s a double-edged approach, with many combos feeling weighty and powerful in nature, but this staccato rhythm of sword swipes staggers the flow of combat and lingers just a little too long when the player takes damage from enemies.

With that said, for the most part the action feels solidly enjoyable with plenty of scope for player expression and experimenting with flamboyant combos that brutalize enemies halfway across the screen, their broken corpses flopping around like pincushions full of kunai. However, I’m also curious to see how the same combat engine would fare if the hitstop was completely absent.

Something that’s more of a clear issue is that Joe commits to certain attacks, meaning that he can’t roll or jump to safety until the attack completed. It leads to the master ninja feeling less sprightly than he probably should, tanking hits with his face instead of swiftly sweeping out of range, making performing certain moves more unsafe than they probably should be. Not that enemies are particularly deadly for the most part, many of them putter through their standard attack animations without much regard for what Joe’s up to.

Bosses are the usual motley crew of idiots who think that they can take on Joe Musashi and live, though series veterans will recognize a few returning faces. They’re fine, but rarely standout – most of them are punching bags, honestly. That’s not to say that they don’t have attack patterns that require avoiding, but Joe can absolutely body them for the most part.

In terms of presentation, Shinobi looks great — absolutely fantastic in places, even, with a hand-drawn art style that continually impresses from the first scene in a gorgeously sunlit field, all the way to later stages storming through rain-slick cities, towering mountain passes, underground secret bases and the welcome return of an awesome surfboarding section. That said, I do find the overly angular stage design to detract from things somewhat, though I’m sure the choice was made to make surface areas more easily recognizable.

Shinobi: Art of Vengeance takes a psuedo-metroidvania approach to level design. It isn’t all one large interconnected world to explore, but rather a bunch of levels peppered with secrets that can only be fully explored when bringing back tools and skills acquired in later levels — things like walls requiring climbing claws to scale, updrafts that necessitate the use of a glider, or anchor points that Musashi will need a grappling hook to latch onto.

Despite this, Shinobi: Art of Vengeance doesn’t take full advantage of the approach. Players will often return with new gear only to pick up a single item or perform a short platforming sequence instead of uncovering new areas to explore, enemies to kill and bosses to defeat. It’s largely disappointing when compared to other games that utilize the approach well, though there are portals known as Ankou rifts that offer more challenging subrooms filled with enemies or tougher platforming sections.

The puzzles on offer generally exist to slow the proceedings down. Flipping switches to open doors is rarely an exhilarating gameplay mechanic, and pushing heavy objects across a floor to block a laser or power a device doesn’t exactly scream high-speed ninja action. Little of this is significantly additive, instead leading to far more downtime than is desired.

I generally enjoyed Shinobi: Art of Vengeance just fine. On the upside, the combat engine is fluid and satisfying to experiment with, and for the most part Shinobi: Art of Vengeance generally offers a reasonably good time. However, as a longtime series fan I expected an absolutely awesome outing, and it never quite hit the heights I was hoping for.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Lizardcube and published by DotEmu. It is currently available on XBX/S/PS5/Switch and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the XBX. Approximately 20 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated T and contains Blood and Violence. The good stuff! The official description reads: This is an action-platformer in which players assume the role of a ninja leader trying to save the world from an evil corporation. From a 2D/sideways perspective, players explore levels while fighting various enemies (e.g., ninjas, soldiers, monsters). Players use swords, throwing stars, and dramatic special moves to kill enemies in frenetic combat; fighting is highlighted by cries of pain, brief slow-motion effects, and frequent blood splatter. One boss fight allows players to dive inside the creature and slash at a giant heart.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. The subtitles cannot be altered and/or resized. I don’t recall any instances where lack of sound would be a problem. I’d say it’s fully accessible without audio.

Remappable Controls: Yes, this game offers fully remappable controls.

The post Shinobi: Art Of Vengeance Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH The Dark Grip power up is a blast.

LOW It’s a roguelike, so expect some runs to be complete write-offs.

WTF Dashing forwards doubles as a deflecting move?

Absolum takes place in a fantasy world where certain types of magic are militarily suppressed by a tyrant known as the Sun King who enforces his rule by locking up or murdering anyone who gets in the way of his ambition. Our heroes set off on an adventure to fight back and topple this system, only for things to go badly wrong roughly ten minutes into their mission.

Said heroes do have an ace up their sleeve though — while they can technically die, it doesn’t last long until they’re reborn in a sanctuary hidden away from prying eyes. So, after being stabbed, bludgeoned, bitten or burnt to death, they’re able to dust themselves off, power themselves up with various goodies from their previous attempt, and have another crack at taking down the Sun King.

Most of the enemies are a standard fantasy medley of orcs, goblins and humans poking at things with spears for the most part. That description also fits the playable characters who are a decent enough cast of misfits, and personable enough once they get talking. That said, Blaze Fielding levels of character design excellence are not to be seen here.

My main choice was the sword knight Galandra, a strong all-rounder. There’s also a Dwarf with stone-hard fists and a blunderbuss, a frog sorcerer who floats around the battlefield unleashing magical justice and a patchwork rogue type who seems the optimal choice for anyone looking to perform freeform combos. The first two are available from the outset, the latter two must be discovered on the journey.

While Absolum is definitely a roguelike, it offers a mostly-traditional 2D side-scrolling approach. Stroll from the left side of the screen to the right mangling anything that gets in the way, pick up gems and loot to either help in current or future runs, and choose a preferred path through the chaos.

If the setup is standard side scrolling fare, then it’s fair to say that the developers have pretty much nailed the combat. Players can run around, dash towards enemies to deflect their attacks, dash up or down to avoid them as well, and use a large variety of special moves to mince through enemy hordes. There’s even the occasional Golden Axe-style mount for added lethality and protection.

One twist to this formula is the addition of Rituals. After nearly every encounter in a given location, the player is offered various rewards ranging from gold and gems to Rituals that can substantially change their playstyle with tweaks such as punches setting foes aflame or well-timed dodges blasting them with lightning.

There are also character-exclusive perks like the Dark Grip, which I fell completely in love with since it turns out that strangling dudes in Absolum is totally awesome. Stroll up to some dirty-looking malcontent, hoist them up into the air by their throat and wait until they turn blue and die, coughing up large chunks of mana in the process.

It should be mentioned that the benefits of some options aren’t always exactly clear, as Absolum is often missing basic information in info panels such as how much damage being choked actually does (lots) to enemies or how effective a floating spectral sword is at stabbing dudes, but experimenting with new discoveries is all part of the experience.

In fact, ‘discovery’ is a watchword here as Absolum shows strength through the variety of things hurled at players. Especially in the early runs, there’s almost always some twist coming out of nowhere to open up new routes, make new friendships or reveal new enemies and bosses lurking in the shadows. One time I was waiting for a lift to another area, only to have a bunch of grenades hurled at me instead. I’m not sure if this was due to the character I picked or not, but my Dwarf didn’t get a warm welcome in that zone.

Of course, this variety in conjunction with the random nature of roguelikes has a downside. When scavenging for life-replenishing food after rough battles, it’s often (literally) a feast or a famine — pointlessly abundant one run with waste aplenty, then an absolute void of sustenance the next. The same goes for abilities and power-ups — one run offers perfectly synchronized Rituals that complement each other, and the next is nothing but a ramshackle collection of redundant nonsense that doesn’t mesh.

If I had a complaint besides the random awful luck of roguelikes, I’d have to say that I’m getting sick of seeing boss characters that borderline cheat by being slathered in hyperarmor that allows them to ignore player attacks until it shatters. It comes across as a bit lazy, honestly — there’s one Warlord boss in particular that takes nasty advantage of this with huge grab windows that last too long, able to snatch players out of combos, mid-attack. It’s not exactly game breaking, but I’d be happy to see it toned down or binned completely moving forward.

I’d also hoped for something to add replay value after killing the true final boss, but Absolum doesn’t introduce any new features that I’m aware of– no randomizers, no new skill tree unlock, and no surprise bonus characters. Given how generous the devs are with content up to that point, it’s a little strange to see the content feed suddenly stop dead like that. Rolling credits feels almost anticlimactic a result.

Minor quibbles aside, Absolum is an excellent beat-’em-up full of cool combos, neat build variations, random events and enjoyable roguelike power evolution spearheaded by a team that Absolumetely knows what they’re doing when it comes to crafting quality content. For fans of roguelikes or side-scrollers, this is one to check out.  

Rating: 8 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Guard Crush/Supamonks and published by DotEmu. It is currently available on XBX/S/PS5/Switch and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 17 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. 0 hours of play were spent in multiplayer modes due to lack of available players pre release.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated E10+ and contains Fantasy Violence, Mild Blood, Mild Language, and Use of Tobacco. The official description reads: Absolum is rated E10+ for Everyone 10+ by the ESRB with Fantasy Violence, Mild Blood, Mild Language, and Use of Tobacco. This is an action-adventure game in which players assume the roles of rebel heroes battling a fantasy villain. From a 2D side-scrolling perspective, players use swords, spells, and melee-style attacks to defeat creatures and human enemies (e.g., goblins, raptors, captains, ghosts) in “beat-’em-up”-style combat. Battles are highlighted by impact sounds, colorful light effects, and cries of pain. A red puddle of blood is depicted on one ground level. One character is seen smoking a pipe. The words “damn” and “hell” appear in the game.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles that cannot be altered or resized. I don’t recall anything in the game that would require the use of hearing for successful play, so I’d say it’s fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: Yes, this game offers fully remappable controls.

The post Absolum Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

This is a transcript excerpt covering the score awarded to Discounty on the So Videogames Podcast, episode 453. For further coverage, please see episodes 452 and 451.

Brad: Okay, just wanted to, finally, for the final. Final time, circle back on Discounty. We’ve been talking about it off and on for at least a month or so. finally rolled credits last night, and I will say, I was kind of surprised that I rolled credits. this is the case where I really like the game left me wanting more. I would have gladly played another ten, 20 hours of this game, and I kind of wished that there was so a little bit of like, it sounds bad to say that I was disappointed it was over, but I was kind of disappointed it was over for those who might have missed it

Discounty is a game.. a 2D indie? kind of a top down. Well, I don’t know, 2D, just whatever. How do you call it? I always struggle, I’ve been in the video game arena for like 40 fucking years. What do you call a game that is 2Dut you’re not looking straight down. But the characters are like side view, but like also the map is 2D. What the fuck do you call that besides 2D? I don’t even know.

Carlos: We’ve said three quarters view.

B: But it’s not three quarters view, though. It isn’t isometric. It’s not… whatever. Fuck it. Whatever. It’s the same thing as Stardew Valley, you know?

C: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

B: Okay, I need, like, a really definitive… I can’t just say 2D because that’s too broad. But it’s not top down either, because you’re not looking at characters heads. What the fuck? 40 years and I still can’t describe it. Anybody listening? Help me out. What the fuck is a good title? Okay, it doesn’t matter anyway. Moving on…

So you move to town, you start a grocery store, and you stock the shelves and you rearrange the store, and you run the store every day, which is really well done. It’s very streamlined and fast and fun. But then you’re also dealing with side quests in the town where it seems like something spooky is going on or something weird is going on. And so you’ve got like these side quests which are not super long and involved, like they’re very light, they feel very appropriate for the game. So you’ve got like your side content, which keeps you busy during night time. You’ve got your store content which keeps you busy during the day. It’s just really, really well done. It’s really measured and polished and balanced. Graphics are great. I think the controls are nice.

I think the UI is great. Everything about it is really well considered. I think the scope is right on. I’ve had just like a blast playing it. It just feels like a very, very well put together game from somebody who really thought carefully about what they were doing and really made sure all the pieces fit together. It was great. I had a blast the entire time from start to finish. The only thing I think that I had an issue with, and this is kind of what I just mentioned a second ago, was like, it feels like it stops a little abruptly. I’m not going to spoil anything. I absolutely think it’s worth playing. I loved it, had a great time. Would recommend it. No problem. , it just feels like when you get to the next big thing, it kind of is like, and there’s the end and I’m like, oh it ended a little bit too abruptly for me. But again, I guess it’s better to leave me wanting more rather than going on for 20 hours too long. Yeah. Like, you know, oh, I’m so sick of this.

C: Which we’ve had.

B: We’ve definitely have had. That’s the norm. Honestly.

C: Two follow up questions. First, how long have you played… how long, how many hours then?

B: I mean, it’s hard to say because I was playing a little bit every night before bed. I want to say it’s like not longer than 20 hours. It might even be shorter than that.

C: Well, that’s not bad.

B: No, no, it’s very reasonable. It’s probably in fact, it’s probably shorter than that. It just seems longer because I was playing it in such small doses.

C: Second question, can you keep playing after credits or is it not that kind of game?

B: You can like you can keep playing if you want to just if you just really like super enjoy running the store, you can keep doing that infinitely. But there are no more like side quests. There’s nothing else really to like to do other than to run the store, which is fine.

C: Ok well all right, well, I still I’m still interested and I still might pick it up because.

B: It’s a good time. It’s a good time. I don’t want to end on a downer because I had a blast with Discounty and I would love DLC or a Discounty 2. I want the developers to expand what they built on. I think the mechanics are smart, the size is smart, the pace is smart — it’s it’s just really, really well done.

C: A good problem to have.

B: It’s like the best possible complaint.

C: Yes. I was just talking to my buddy Damien last night about short games. And again it came back with Silksong and he just played a couple and I feel bad. I can’t remember the names of them. I’ll I’ll find it. And you can put in the show notes. But he just played two and he beat both of them and I’m like, you know. Or he beat one and he’s about to beat the other. And I’m like, oh my goodness, that’s what I want right now in my life. Yeah, I want to beat these short experiences. And we go in cycles, you know, like sometimes I want Assassin’s Creed and just like to live in those worlds forever. Yeah. But just recently, like, Diablo is different because I can put that up and pick it up and put it down. You know.

B: It’s more of a lifestyle.

C: Yeah, yeah. But other games like hell, which we’ll talk about in the show, you know, they’re if they’re pretty huge in scope, I’m like, oh, I don’t know. You know, I just want to like beat something. So yeah.

B: Well, before we get off of this Discounty, I do want to give it an official score, since I talked about it so many times, and I’ve gone through the whole journey with the people here listening.

So I feel like it’s a great game. Like I said, at the end of the day, my only complaint about Discounty is that I wanted more of it, and that’s probably the best problem you could possibly have. It was great from start to finish and I wanted more, but it does what it does well — it gets in, it gets out, and it’s a great example of of how to deliver a measured experience. And I feel like a solid eight is a good place for that to live.

C: I totally I totally predicted that score from you.

B: Did you? Okay.

C: In my head I said it’s he’s gonna say eight.

B: There you go. Eight out of ten.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Crinkle Cut Games and published by PQube. It is currently available on PC, PlayStation, Xbox and Switch. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the Switch. Approximately 20 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated E and contains Alcohol Reference. The official description reads: Discounty is rated E for Everyone by the ESRB with Alcohol Reference. This is a role-playing/simulation game in which players help a character salvage a grocery store in an old harbor town. Players organize and restock shelves, assist customers, and befriend local characters. A bar location is named the Drunken Tern, with billboards depicting a bird with bubbles over its head.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available in the options.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: All dialogue comes in the form of text which cannot be resized or altered. There are no audio cues needed for play. This game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: No, this game’s controls are not remappable. There is no control diagram. The left stick moves the character, the face buttons handle interact/confirm/cancel. The plus button brings up a menu. The entire control scheme is fairly straightforward.

The post SVG REVIEW: Discounty appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Linking seamlessly flamboyant chains of acrobatics and death.

LOW No rapid-fire option for automatic sword swings can wear on the thumb.

WTF Super Express to Hell!

Ninja Gaiden‘s been on vacation for a while at this point. Well, break time’s over, bastards — The Game Kitchen, developers of the highly regarded Blasphemous series, have decided to cook up a delicious new entry in this legendary IP.

Despite Ninja Gaiden typically being known for its bloodsplatteringly vicious 3D combat entries, Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound instead hearkens back to the classic NES trilogy with a modernized take on the 2D ninja platforming that got the ball rolling in the first place.

After a short playable prologue, Ragebound’s new protagonist Kenji Mozu scoots through a quick obstacle and tutorial course introducing the most important mechanics and subsequently gets Izuna Dropped on his head by the legendary Ryu Hayabusa as a reward for completing his trial.

Things suddenly kick off in a serious way, Ryu has to leave for America in a hurry, and series veterans will undoubtedly be pleased to hear that the Hayabusa Ninja Village continues its longstanding tradition of being razed to the ground by demons every other week.

Before long, Kenji joins forces with Kumori, a Black Spider Ninja Clan operative with a penchant for hurling razor sharp kunai into the faces of anyone she deems unpleasant. The catch is that they have to literally fuse into a single body to survive, so while Kenji emerges from this joining as the dominant character, Kumori aids him as a powerful spectral sidekick capable of hurling projectiles and using ninpo magic to annihilate any fiends standing in their way.

I found these two new protagonists to be great, playing off one another as mismatched partners facing impossible odds — one full of zeal and righteousness, the other cynical and pragmatic. They may be original characters, but players familiar with the franchise are likely to recognize certain parallels in their design and combat style right away. Kenji is basically a greener, brasher approximation of Ryu Hayabusa and Kumori carries herself as an infinitely cooler version of Ayane from the Dead or Alive series.

As someone who may or may not be dead, Kumori is also able to step into the Demon Realm whenever Kenji comes across demon statues dotted throughout the stages. These tend to be where the toughest platforming challenges take place, but even though Kumori has to complete her tasks on a strict timer before being recalled, she won’t die if she takes too much damage or drops down a pit which allows for as many retries as the player needs to succeed.

Combat is slick, speedy and satisfying thanks to perfectly responsive controls. Kenji can kill many enemies with a single sword slash, cut through incoming projectiles, or kickflip off nearly every enemy or attack in the game using a technique known as the Guillotine Boost — and it isn’t just an optional extra thrown in to spice things up. Players will be required to frequently make use of it to cross yawning chasms filled with airborne baddies or to bounce their way towards secret areas and items tucked just out of reach.

The other major new addition is the ability to Hypercharge Kenji and Kumori’s attacks by killing specific enemies in sequence or sacrificing a little health, allowing them to slice through most enemies’ defenses to dispatch them in one murderously powerful blow. It’s exceptionally useful, and in order to fully leverage it, players will have to think quickly about the optimal approach to many situations.

It’s important to note that Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound isn’t a metroidvania or a roguelike — it’s a traditional stage-based action-platformer in the vein of the original NES titles. Nearly every stage looks fantastic in a chunky pixel art manner, with plenty of detail and great animation throughout as players follow Kenji and Kumori’s journey through burning temples, mountain pathways, across the tops of high-speed trains and more. I only disliked the design of one stage, a sickly and unpleasant biolab which simply didn’t hold up to the quality of the others.

Also of note is the amount of variations throughout each stage to help spice gameplay up. Whether fleeing from a demon who somehow learned how to operate a bulldozer, speeding across the countryside on a motorbike or having to take cover from powerful explosions in the background of an unfinished construction yard, there are plenty of neat setpieces to help keep things interesting.

The journey may not always be an easy one, but I absolutely loved it. It’s just… Goddamn, my thumb really hurts now.

Given that Kenji and Kumori have fixed stats, players can’t simply level up by killing minions to overcome challenges through brute force. That said, there are numerous Golden Scarabs and Crystal Skulls tucked away in each stage which can be used to purchase items from a shop between stages. Obtaining new projectiles and super arts, and equipping up to two talismans that help or hamper their chances of succeeding in each level can make a real difference.

Positive effects can include healing on chain kills and obtaining Hypercharge attacks from linking multiple Guillotine Boosts together, whereas negative ones may involve not healing at checkpoints or restarting the entire stage upon death in exchange for higher completion ranks at the end. Every stage has a rank associated with it, and challenges can range from trivialities such as deflecting a few projectiles to more challenging ones such as beating Ryu Hayabusa in a duel fresh out of the tutorial.

Make no mistake, Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound can be a tricky game, even on the Normal difficulty setting. However, it also allows players to make the experience as easy or as hard as they like, whether through unlockable weapons and talismans or by using an in-game accessibility menu that can slow down overall speed, reduce taken damage or even make players invincible to pretty much anything other than falling off the map — so while it’s a tough game by default, pretty much anyone should be able to succeed through tweaking various settings. There’s also no antiquated ‘lives’ system looming overhead, and plenty of checkpoints to quickly return to.

In fact, about the only real complaint I have about Ragebound is that there’s no rapid-fire option in the menus for repeated sword slashes. Some of these bosses can take a real pounding, so after a few deaths and hammering away at the melee button like a madman each time, my thumb started to feel somewhat abused. It’s not typically a concern while making headway through each stage, but some bosses have massive health pools to be whittled down, leading to serious physical fatigue.

Aside from that one issue, it’s hard to fault anything about Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound. It’s damn near perfect, and offers an immensely satisfying experience with plenty of replayability — it’s so good, in fact, that after completing it for the first time, I sat down and immediately completed it again on Hard Mode.

Rating: 9 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by The Game Kitchen and published by DotEmu. It is currently available on XBO, XBX/S/PS4/PS5/Switch and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher. Approximately 20 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed twice with all achievements earned. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated T and contains Blood and Gore, Mild Language, Mild Suggestive Themes, and Violence. The official description reads: This is a 2D action-platformer based on levels and characters from the Ninja Gaiden universe. Players control small ninjas as they battle enemies (e.g., human commandos, ninjas, demons) in fast-paced combat. Players use swords, thrown weapons, and magic skills to kill enemies. Combat is highlighted by impact sounds, cries of pain, and blood-splatter effects. Some attacks allow players to dismember or behead enemies, and a handful of boss creatures are depicted with exposed organs and/or skinless, flesh/sinewy bodies. Some female enemies are designed with revealing outfits (e.g., low-cut tops, a lot of cleavage). The word “a*s” appears in the game.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. All dialogue is delivered through text. The subtitles can be altered and/ or resized, though seemingly not enlarged. This game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: Yes, this game offers fully remappable controls.

The post Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Interesting blend of survival horror, visual novel, deduction and detective work.

LOW Frustrating barriers to entry. Misleading clues.

WTF Why put out piano note clues for the player if nothing happens?

Dead of Darkness is an outstanding title that it manages to take many ingredients from different genres, put them all in a blender and cook up something palatable in a way that no other game has. I expect that it will be received as hearty and balanced among Survival Horror fans, though it may prove to be an acquired taste for others.

DoD borrows genre tropes both in terms of gameplay and narrative elements from genre-defining classics like Resident Evil, employs pixel art likely inspired by 16-bit era games like Chrono Trigger, and even offers visual novel-style animated dialogue mixed with cluefinding, reminiscent of games like Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.

Right from the start, the tone is unabashedly Gothic as the adventure opens with a visual of the setting, Velvet Island in the year 1985. The player is given a brief exposition — there have been disappearances and odd activities on the Graham estate, along with whispers that the occult was involved. The player’s character (PC) has been hired as a PI to get to the bottom of whatever explanation there might be.

I was impressed by the well-written dialogue during the first exchange between my gruff PC and the cryptic servants. Petty family drama was evident.

As I explored the lonely estate, I couldn’t help but think of the first Resident Evil which was similarly set in a creepy old mansion filled with zombies and a host of other abominations — but I never finished it because I couldn’t stand the abominable fixed camera. As such, I was grateful for the developers’ decision to opt for a top-down perspective, rather than the fixed camera angles that were synonymous with early survival horror titles. That perspective kept me from diving into the genre for years!

The birds-eye-view angle allows the player to see incoming threats from different parts of the mansion although, being a horror game, enemies will sometimes appear suddenly without warning through windows or doors which were set up to make me jump on a few occasions.

Also, being specifically a Survival Horror game, the player must be careful about when and where they choose to use their ammo and other supplies, as resources are (naturally) limited and there’s no telling when another box or drawer stocked with supplies might pop up; even the PC’s knife has limited durability.

In the early game, enemies are mercifully slow but can do some serious damage. They also take a serious beating before they drop — at least 6-8 bullets on a regular zombie — so the player would be wise to give them a wide berth whenever possible. But sometimes, the player really has no choice other than to shoot and try to manage their ammo well.

Besides combat, Dead of Darkness carries on the Survival Horror tradition with a host of puzzles, but additionally invites players to use their powers of deduction with help from clues they collect in the form of diary entries, letters, and more, all to locate necessary items or to find a hidden path forward — a neat way to set it apart from its influences and contemporaries, allowing the player to feel like a detective as they begin to unravel the mysteries hidden throughout the mansion.

Aiding this process is color coding on the map. Gray represented rooms that had yet to be explored, green for rooms that had been cleared, red for rooms that had unsolved puzzles or unclaimed items, and a variety of colored doors representing rooms that were either accessible or locked/blocked/required a certain kind of key or item for entry. Unfortunately, while this system seems great in theory, it wasn’t quite up to snuff.

I don’t expect games to hold my hand, but I do want a certain amount of clarity about where I need to go, and it was frustrating to so often be at a loss as to how or where to acquire whatever was needed to progress.

Sometimes, I would seemingly have what I needed, such as piano notes for the grand piano located in the bar, but when I had my PC play the notes, it didn’t work. Similarly, I would find a lockpick, suggesting that I return to a locked door, only to find that I couldn’t actually use it to help me access any of the rooms. At one point I needed tongs to grab a necessary item from a fireplace, but I had no idea where to find them.

Eventually, this series of disappointments caused me to lose motivation as well as my patience, and it was discouraging enough to make me put the game down and not return. It’s a shame, too — I can see how much passion and attention to detail went into the development of Dead of Darkness between the gameplay, writing and aesthetics, but the sheer frustration of its puzzle aspects needs more time and attention.

The true horrors on this estate aren’t the undead… they’re the puzzles.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Buy Dead of Darkness — PC — SW — PS — XB

Disclosures: This game was developed and published by Retrofiction Games. The game is currently available on PC, XBX/S, PS4/5 and Switch. It was obtained via publisher and reviewed for Switch. Approximately 4 hours were devoted to the campaign mode. The game was not finished. There is no multiplayer mode.

Parents: This game is rated M for Blood and Gore, Strong Language and Violence. The player will be attacked by monsters and attack monsters themselves, causing them to bleed and there are many corpses scattered throughout the estate in various states of decay and sometimes nothing more than a mess of blood and gore. The protagonist also has a tendency to curse but nothing offensive or out of the ordinary for a Survival Horror game.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game has both voiced dialogue and text-based dialogue but no audio cues that impact the gameplay in any significant way, making it fully accessible.

Remappable controls: The controls cannot be remapped.

The post Dead Of Darkness Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH It’s Tail Time.

LOW It’s Tail Time.

WTF It’s Tail Time.

When I asked to review the remastered Gex Trilogy, I knew it would be a massive undertaking, the likes of which no one has seen before — and it is not possible to overstate how sarcastic I am being here.

Debuting back in 1994, Gex is a ‘beloved’ character mascot that the big bosses at Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix wheeled out for four years despite owning the IP for nearly two decades overall, and neither studio doing much of anything with it in all that time. 

After playing through this trilogy, it’s not surprising why.

Gex is not a compelling character, and the titles where he is featured are equally uninteresting. It’s clear that he was meant to compete with the plethora of 3D platforming mascots that came out in the late ’90s, such as Spyro the Dragon and Crash Bandicoot. However, comparing Gex to the brighter stars of the time is like pitting a toddler against a bulldozer. 

Gex’s whole personality is that he’s an anthropomorphic gecko obsessed with television. It’s a shoddy connection at best, but his whole mission across the three games is that he must tackle various villains in the Media Dimension, where he gets sucked into a TV and plays through levels based on TV show tropes and genres.

This is also, for better or worse, where he gets his humor. Gex is not the typical naive protagonist, working to save his home world from an evil threat. Instead, he behaves like a friend of a friend that you don’t really hang out with.

He’s jaded. He makes half-jokes that never land about movie stars that are no longer on the silver screen. Perhaps the most annoying part of the entire character is that every other sentence is either “It’s Tail Time” or “That’s what I call getting some tail.” The tail ‘jokes’, if one could even call them that, never stopped. It was agonizing. Maybe it was funny at one point, but I don’t think that point exists in the present day.

For this review, I played through portions of the original Gex (1995) and Gex 3: Deep Cover Gecko (1999), and played through all of Gex: Enter the Gecko (1998).

The 1995 title is a fairly standard 2D platformer. The action, as is the level design and visuals. However, it’s difficult to focus on those when Gex’s story is devoid of purpose — his mission lacks a driving force to keep him going other than the fact that he’s just stuck in the Media Dimension.

It’s common with all the Gex games, but the main villain of all three titles, Rez, shows up at the beginning of each adventure, only to disappear until the very end. Therefore, none of the enemies seem connected with the overall plot, and are just there to be dealt with. There are TV remotes to collect in each level, but it never felt like I was progressing to an ending of any kind. 

The 3D platformers weren’t much better. Enter the Gecko (1998) was the title I spent the most time with, and it felt devoid of any life or spirit.

The same can be said for Gex 3: Deep Cover Gecko (1999). A part of the reason for this was the overall TV-theming — when a title like Gex chooses to use TV as the through-line between every world and also chooses to license no recognizable properties, it feels generic. I played through a bland, yet borderline racist ninja level. I played through a generic Jurassic Park-esque dinosaur level. Even the “Circuit” levels, which seemed like something straight out of Tron, were just not memorable. 

Story and bad character design aside, the 3D games are serviceable in terms of mechanics. The 3D platforming is solid, and the setpieces are interesting enough. Frankly, it’s remarkable that the Limited Run team could bring these games back from the ’90s and make them playable today in the 2020s. 

At the end of the day, I think the main lesson to take away from the Gex Trilogy is that just because a title has a serviceable design foundation and decent gameplay mechanics, it doesn’t mean that’s enough. If the experience relies on a mascot character to stand out from the pack and that character is annoying as all hell, it’s doomed from the start.

Out of all of the nearly-forgotten games to bring forward into the 2020s, I’m not sure why Limited Run chose Gex — it’s such an absurdist concept that I have to laugh at it now, but while playing Gex in the moment, I despised it. 

Rating: 3 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Crystal Dynamics and published by Limited Run Games. It is currently available on PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and was reviewed on PC. Approximately 11 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was not completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: This game is rated T by the ESRB for Blood, Crude Humor, Fantasy Violence, Mild Language and Sexual Themes. Gex will make crude, sometimes sexual jokes like “Don’t drink the punch at Jerry Garcia’s,” and “I’m lost in Dick Dale’s colon.” The extent of the crude language is a statement like “Damn this pesky gravity to hell!” when Gex falls into a pit. The combat is fairly cartoony but there are a few sections with animated blood such as in the ninja levels.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Dear & Hard of Hearing Gamers: There are no subtitles for dialogue. This game is not accessible.

Remappable Controls: The game’s controls are fully remappable.

The post Gex Trilogy Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Charming pixel art, modern civilization fallen into ruin with Norse mythological backdrop

LOW Clunky movement, weak combat, wonky UI

WTF Why do I need to disconnect my controller just for the game to be able to launch?

Vessels of Decay makes a good first impression. 

When I saw a gameplay video, I was instantly drawn in by the retro-inspired graphics, isometric action, RPG gameplay and a post-apocalyptic setting steeped in Norse mythology.

The player follows the adventures of siblings Freja and Mud as they fight a wide variety of monsters on their quest to restore the world’s former glory, which entails navigating dilapidated city centers and mysterious Zelda-esque temples chock full of puzzles and challenges.

When I finally set out on my hero’s journey, however, that first impression quickly soured due to a host of technical issues… starting with the game’s failure to launch.

After trying to boot it up several times and failing, I took to the Internet to see if anyone else had encountered the same issue. Other players had already figured out that Decay wouldn’t launch if they had a controller connected, so I had to disconnect my controller, reboot, and then plug the controller back in once the main menu had loaded.

The menu featured the same image used for the promo materials, and it captures what appealed to me in the first place — the two siblings standing on a precipice overlooking a vast landscape and facing what appeared to be a giant deer god. Honestly, it’s a scene worthy of being an album cover. Things were looking up again… for a little while, anyway.

Getting back to controllers, Decay is poorly optimized for them. Even when I tried to rebind the controls, the UI was so clunky that I had to go through and reconfirm or reassign every input entirely (there’s no way to change one and back out) so I eventually just settled on the default settings, which detracted from the overall experience as the developers made many odd choices in determining which buttons to have the player use for certain actions.

Past the controls, I wish I could say that Vessels of Decay lived up to my hopes and expectations, but truthfully, I’m struggling to find positive things to say about it. I liked the vibe and appreciated what I could glean from the few cutscenes and bits of dialogue (each chapter shifted perspective from one sibling to the other) but the way the story was presented made it a little tough to tell the different between dreams or visions and reality.

Initially, I remember being enchanted by the ethereal synth music and the nostalgic pixel art throughout the city ruins which served as the tutorial area where (sadly) I experienced even more egregious technical difficulties.

I was shown the ropes of combat soon after. The game offers heavy and light attacks, a parry, a dodge and executions, but the movement felt sluggish, even when “sprinting”, which was quite finicky. Platforming challenges like swinging from pole to pole across gaps were mired by inconsistent timing, particularly infuriating during a chase sequence when I was being pursued by a giant boar. Balancing on beams between buildings tended to be glitchy — sometimes I would still be walking as if I was on the beam after I had already jumped off and I would be forced to restart from the checkpoint.

Once I made it to the first boss arena, I was disappointed to find that my opponent, the giant boar, was not necessarily challenging, but was still an incredibly repetitive and frustrating fight. There were many times when nothing was happening on-screen, yet the arena would ‘vibrate’ to signify that the boar was stomping around somewhere, so I would have to wander around the arena until I finally triggered its charge attack.

Sometimes the boar wouldn’t make any noise as it did so, looking almost comical as it flew silently around the map trying to attack me. At other times, the camera would neither track me nor the boar, and would instead be fixed on a patch of trees somewhere. Such a viewpoint made it impossible for me to tell where I was or what was going on, so I would end up guessing and dodging blindly in a given direction. Miraculously, I managed to finally bring it down, but rather than feel accomplished, I mostly just felt relieved to have gotten past something that had been the source of so much frustration.

As things progressed, I unlocked some satisfying abilities like the Thorn Stomp which allowed me to use what was essentially a spell slot to trigger far off switches or attack enemies from a distance. I also enjoyed the Charge Dash, though it caused me to get stuck in the wall on several occasions, requiring me to reload the game from a previous save.

The various types of puzzles and challenges in each area weren’t anything that hasn’t been done before (I half-expected the item discovery sound effect from Zelda anytime I opened a chest) but the areas were aesthetically captivating, and at one point I came across a shopping mall which acted as the lair for a host of giants, goblins and trolls — an interesting location!

At this point, I’m running out of positives to share. I had completely lost interest in the story by this point of the game and all of the persistent technical issues drowned out any enjoyment Vessels of Decay had managed to cultivate. To be perfectly frank, it’s unlikely that the developers will be able to address all of the issues that would need to be resolved to make Decay appeal to a wider audience. There are a handful of great ideas here, but the execution falls so wide of the mark that I hope the devs can take this as a learning experience and improve their next venture.

Rating: 5.5 out of 10

Buy Vessels of Decay — PC — XBO/X/S — PS4/PS5 — Switch

Disclosures: This game was developed by Simon Jakobsson and Aurora Punks and published by Headup. The game is currently available on PC, XBO/X/S, PS4, PS5 and Switch. It was obtained via publisher and reviewed for PC. Approximately 3.5 hours were devoted to the campaign mode. The game was not finished. There is no multiplayer mode.

Parents: This game is not yet rated but it would likely be rated T for cartoon violence, blood and gore.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game has only text-based dialogue and no audio cues that impact the gameplay in any significant way making it fully accessible.

Remappable controls: The controls can be remapped.

The post Vessels Of Decay Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH The story feels both boundless and handcrafted. 

LOW Some reused art assets here and there.

WTF A girl who wears a tomato mask  

I keep asking myself, have I really beaten The Hundred Line?

Sure I’ve completed the story — I’ve reached the end credits a little under 40 times now, acquiring nearly half of the 100 available endings. But those 60-or-so endings that remain… they vex me, I tell ya. Not only do they make me second-guess whether or not I’ve really completed The Hundred Line in any meaningful sense, but they also make me wonder whether I’ll ever fully conquer something this vast and labyrinthian.

In general, I hate how bloated games have become. I’m just not interested in titles that prioritize endless Content — to me, they feel like a futile and demeaning attempt to numb the player’s brain and senses. The Hundred Line is different, though. Its endless length is filled to the brim with a number of story routes which vary wildly in tone and genre, acting as a veritable index of modern videogame storytelling, and genre storytelling in general. I continue to be entranced by The Hundred Line’s endless possibilities, in awe of its gutsiness and ambition. 

Despite the bizarre turns the story takes over the course of its gargantuan runtime, the setup is (relatively) simple. The protagonist, Takumi Sumino, is living a blissful (yet boring) existence in the Tokyo Residential Complex, a futuristic, sealed-off metropolis. One day, Takumi and his childhood friend Karua are accosted by mysterious, cartoonish alien creatures called ‘Invaders.’ Takumi is then prompted by an equally mysterious robot to use a special power to fight these Invaders.

Afterwards, Takumi is transported to the titular ‘Last Defense Academy,’ a school that seems to stand within the ruins of a devastated Earth. Awaking at the academy with the robot, Sirei, and a group of quirky fellow students, Takumi is told they must defend the school for 100 days, protecting ‘something’ within the complex that is ‘critical to humanity’s survival.’ 

It’s difficult to summarize The Hundred Line without spoiling anything, given the ways in which the setup is expanded and twisted throughout the initial playthrough and all subsequent runs (which then allow the player to make choices that drastically alter the course of the story). However, to put it in a nutshell, it largely summed up as a combination of Visual Novel and Turn-Based Tactics.

As The Hundred Line cannonballs through different genres and tones, even plot elements that were initially relegated to the background take on new dimensions of significance and pathos. The characters, who can initially feel like caricatures (a ditzy samurai, a morbid goth girl obsessed with lurid videogames, etc.) acquire additional texture as the player spends more time with them, many acting as a sort of secondary ‘star’ of their very own route. It all feels like staring at a painting from different angles, a ritual that becomes comfortably familiar while still having the capacity to surprise and delight. 

This dizzyingly panoramic effect is increased by the fact that, in many cases, the individual routes feel so distinct that each is like a self-contained story unto itself. Certainly, some routes and some endings feel more like ‘True’ endings and routes than others, but The Hundred Line seems open to the idea that the player should shape their experience, in a manner that can only be accomplished in the medium of videogames. Even if the player decides to move on before clearing all 100 endings, they will undoubtedly find a route that feels like a cathartic stopping point.

The Hundred Line’s gargantuan visual novel story is frequently broken up by tactical RPG sections. Players have a pre-determined number of moves each turn, called ‘AP’ with which they can move any unit as many times as they like. This shared pool of moves is the key to The Hundred Line’s excellent gameplay, enabling its best feature — a sort of Shin Megami Tensei-esque extra turn system. By killing larger enemies, the player can gain AP. Also, every attack contributes towards building a ‘Voltage’ gauge, which, when full, grants the player’s units the ability to launch powerful Area-of-Effect attacks at no AP cost, among other possible effects. 

It’s easy to see how these pieces fit together. Combat revolves around efficiently targeting sets of elite units, gaining Voltage, and looping powerful attacks. Often, the player can burn down a huge wall of units in a single turn, which feels both joyously appropriate from a narrative perspective (defending a lone human outpost from an endless barrage of Invaders) and continuously novel from a gameplay perspective. Even though there are a limited number of enemies in The Hundred Line, the play continues to engage as the challenge to ‘solve’ enemy setups with greater efficiency ramps up. It’s a freeform and highly encouraging form of player experimentation — more like a puzzler than tactical RPG, almost. 

Both the story and the gameplay, in fact, are united in a sort of easygoing, confident attitude — they both welcome the player into a playful garden of limitless variations, inviting them to take their time and experiment with the systems and narrative possibilities at their own pace. Unlike many modern titles, The Hundred Line is huge content-wise because the developers just felt that it should be, and it’s not attempting to hoodwink the player with hours upon hours of empty, padded content. Each writer for The Hundred Line’s numerous arcs clearly had their own vision, each slice feeling like a necessary part of The Hundred Line’s grand mosaic. 

Even if I never completely beat The Hundred Line, even if I’m never able to see what that entire mosaic is supposed to look like, I’m just glad I got to play around in its world for a while. 

Rating: 9.5 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Too Kyo Games and Media.Vision, and published by Aniplex. It is currently available on PC and Switch. Approximately 115 hours were dedicated to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes. 

Parents: according to the ESRB, this game is rated M and contains Blood, Partial Nudity, Sexual Themes, Strong Language, and Violence. The official description reads: This is a role-playing game in which players follow a man recruited to an academy tasked with protecting humanity from destructive invaders. The game contains visual novel elements largely presented as still-screen images and sound effects. Cutscenes sometimes depict instances of violence and blood: characters stabbing themselves with swords as blood erupts from their wounds; a character decapitated off-camera; a knight figure cutting its own throat, resulting in large spurts of blood. Gameplay combat is turn-based, with players selecting movements and attacks from a menu screen to battle colorful demon enemies; players use swords, axes, bats, and fantastical guns to defeat enemies. Some scenes depict/discuss sexual themes: a woman covered in cake imploring a character to eat it off of her while she moans; a character telling players’ character “let me grab them b*obs!” A handful of scenes depict characters partially nude, with hair/arms/weapons covering their breasts; one character is depicted with partially exposed buttocks. The word “f**k” appears in the game.

Colorblind modes: There are no colorblind modes available. 

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. The subtitles cannot be altered and/or resized. All the dialogue (and other essential information) is delivered via subtitles. In addition, there are no essential sound cues within the combat system. Thus, all elements of the game are fully accessible without sound. 

Remappable Controls: Yes, this game offers fully remappable controls.

The post The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Unique creatures to transform into!

LOW The backtracking feels like it only exists to pad the playtime.

WTF A Dark Souls-esque currency-dropped-on-death system that can be turned off anyway.

For years, the so-called metroidvania subgenre has been a favorite for many indie developers. Biomorph is Lucid Dream Studio’s crack at the classic formula, and they deliver a satisfying and modern experience that many fans will appreciate.

The adventure begins with an animated cutscene, whose art style (along with the art direction for the humanoid characters) is reminiscent of 2012’s Dust: An Elysian Tail. Characters offer an interesting blend of animal characteristics without necessarily drawing to mind any specific animals — instead of a generic cat girl, a character may have cat-like ears but a reptilian face, or wing-like arms.

The monster designs are where the team’s creativity shines, as they manage to be unique and monstrous — even disturbing — while still fitting into the more ‘cartoony’ world, which is especially important as one of the main character’s signature powers is transforming into enemies they have defeated. After besting enough of an enemy type, that type can be morphed into at any time, each coming with their own movesets and movement options to solve puzzles or offer advantages in combat. One monster let me hover past spike pits that would otherwise kill me; a majestic elk-looking monster offered little in terms of traversal options but did have great kill power.

The base character has a variety of attack and action options, thanks to a system of ‘chips’ which can be swapped out and upgraded. One chip offers standard directional melee punches, while another may offer ranged options, or a shield that can block an enemy’s attack.

Movement is basic and somewhat limited. Jump height can be adjusted by how long the button is held, and there’s a short ‘slide’ the player can perform to get through tight spaces or dodge high-aiming attacks. Platforming can be somewhat dull due to these limited options, although some enemy forms offer other options to navigate certain rooms, and I would say this is fairly standard for the subgenre.

Exploration in Biomorph is fairly standard for metroidvanias, with backtracking encouraged when new powers are gained, and a map that’s easily readable and allows for the placing of various pins to notate areas that need to be revisited. There main and side quests that are generally marked on the map and are rarely if ever confusing to follow.

However, there are occasions where back-and-forth travel required by missions serves no purpose other than wasting time. For example, several missions required meeting a character in the main town after finding them elsewhere in the world. Then that character makes the player walk across town to ‘submit a form’ so they can establish a business, and then they return to the same spot. Why not just have the character set up shop as soon as they return to town?

It’s worth noting that by default, Biomorph has a souls-esque system of making the character drop all currency when they get killed, before immediately auto-saving. However, if the currency is lost in a boss room, the pile will spawn outside, which is great. With that said, there’s an option in the menu to simply turn this soulslike mechanic off entirely, which was a good move as it felt tacked on as a nod to FromSoftware, rather than a thoughtful inclusion to their own work.

In terms of bosses, Biomorph‘s are scattered throughout the world, and they offer a different experience from the usual platforming and basic puzzle-solving. These bosses are, for the most part, not particularly difficult and tend to devolve into jumping around until they offer an opening to get some hits in. Simply rinse and repeat until they explode into a gory mess. They serve their purpose but ultimately weren’t memorable.

Ultimately, Biomorph is a serviceable addition to the metroidvania subgenre that I think most fans of the content will enjoy thanks to the appealing look of its graphics and the novelty of the main character’s ability to transform. It might not break much new ground, but a solid experience doesn’t necessarily have to.

Rating: 6 out of 10

Buy Biomorph – PC– PS – XB – SW

Disclosures: This game was developed and published by Lucid Dreams Studio. It is currently available on Switch, PS5, XBO/X/S, and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the Switch OLED. Approximately 12 hours were devoted to the game, and it was not completed. This is a single-player-only title.

Parents: This game has received a T rating from the ESRB and contains Blood and Violence. While none of the characters players fight are human, monsters do explode in messes of gore and viscera when defeated. Fighting these monsters is frequent and encouraged via gameplay.

Colorblind modes: There are no colorblind modes.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: All dialogue is written and no gameplay segments encountered required sound cues. This game is fully accessible.

Controls: The controls are fully remappable.

The post Biomorph Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.